


from the old distance of our names

by thorbiased



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Grief, Loki Needs a Hug, Post-Ragnarok, Slice of Life, Thor Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thorbiased/pseuds/thorbiased
Summary: Thor stood from his throne and walked down the short steps to meet the kids on the floor. He hadn’t noticed them until now; the steady stream of families had kept them all too busy to realize they were there. His chest ached as he sat on the cold ground. Tears stung at his remaining eye. Maybe he was just tired. It had been a long day. But the sight of those kids nearly reduced him to weeping.This doesn't have much of a plot. It's really just a snapshot of a moment after Ragnarok ended. That's all I can tell you, to be honest.
Relationships: The Asgardians & Thor, Thor & Brunnhilde | Valkyrie, Thor & Heimdall, Thor & Loki, Thor & Volstagg
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	from the old distance of our names

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from a poem called 'on the death of the beloved' 
> 
> i hope you enjoy. this was also vaguely inspired by a tumblr post (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/portraitoftheoddity/167432736039)

Thor tucked a fifth leather-bound journal under his arm and flicked off the lights in the supply closet. He pushed open the door, then raised his pile of journals to Heimdall, who nodded once. 

“That will do,” he said. Thor passed over a journal, and they started down the corridor. “The people are waiting in the main hold.” 

“Brunnhilde and Loki are counting rooms now,” Thor said, “If they’ve split up, they should be done soon.” 

Heimdall briefly turned his gaze to them. “Aye, they had the good sense to split up.” 

They turned a corner. The sounds of a thousand overlapping conversations echoed in the empty metal walls of the  _ Statesman _ . Thor’s stomach turned. Tonight they would worry about getting the people housed, then fed. Their wounds had been tended to, and thankfully those were few and far between. Even with that finished, there was still much to be done. It would be days before Thor could rest easy. That old familiar doubt screamed in the back of his mind, but he had to ignore it for his people’s sake. He, along with his ragtag team of now-advisors, was all they had. 

A pair of double doors separated Thor and Heimdall from Asgard. Thor stopped abruptly in front of them, his heart hammering so hard in his chest that he could feel it in his missing eye. “Heimdall, how am I going to do this?” 

“With my help,” Heimdall replied smoothly, placing his hand on Thor’s uninjured shoulder. “And your brother’s and the Valkyrie’s. We’ll figure it out.” 

Thor exhaled slowly, then nodded. “Aye, aye. You’re right. Let’s do this.” 

Thor pushed open the doors, and all the conversations dropped silent as they noticed him enter. The people dropped their heads as he passed by them on his way to the raised platform where they’d placed his throne. He fought the urge to tell them to stop. Maybe one day he’d get around to breaking Asgard’s old habits, but they’d lost too much already for him to start now. 

“Attention, Asgard!” Thor called out, his voice echoing. He swallowed thickly, and his cheeks flushed pink. Too many eyes were trained on him, now. How had he ever enjoyed this? He cleared his throat. “I want this to go as quickly as possible, but you’re going to have to be patient. Please gather all members of your immediate family, then form a line in front of me.”

Thor assumed this would be easy enough, but even that simple instruction turned the room into chaos. His plastered on smile faltered as shouts rose over the silence and fights broke out. People shoved their way to the front of the line and knocked people out of the way to get a better spot. 

“Hey!” Thor shouted, but they paid him no mind. Frustration flared in his chest, so he did something reckless. He clenched his fists at his side and thunder cracked in the air. Everyone fell silent. Thor heard the distinct sound of Heimdall suppressing a laugh, but decided to ignore it. “Be civil.”

Mumbles of apologies were heard next as the line began to form. It was long and eventually needed to curve in a serpentine structure in the bay. Thor had faced many foes in his time, but the sight of that crowd scared him more in that moment than the beasts ever had. 

“Well, let’s get started then.” 

Thor recorded their names, where they were from, and the jobs they’d held on Asgard. Heimdall took the arduous task of recording their missing family members, which Thor was intensely grateful for. Loki and Brunnhilde arrived after they’d counted every room on the ship, of which there were around 700. There were enough rooms to house them all comfortably if they converted a lot of larger rooms to makeshift shelters. Thor put Brunnhilde in charge of leading the families to rooms. Loki took another journal to the back of the line and started recording the people there. 

It took about three hours in total to finish with the families, but instead of fixing the problem, it just revealed another one. Thor expected the room to be empty once they’d gone through everyone. Instead, he faced a small group of children of varying ages, all left orphans by Hela’s raid. 

Thor stood from his throne and walked down the short steps to meet the kids on the floor. He hadn’t noticed them until now; the steady stream of families had kept them all too busy to realize they were there. His chest ached as he sat on the cold ground. Tears stung at his remaining eye. Maybe he was just tired. It  _ had  _ been a long day. But the sight of those kids nearly reduced him to weeping. 

“Your majesty?” one girl in the front of the group asked. She was little more than a hundred or so. Even with Thor seated, she barely reached his eye level. “What about us?” 

Thor swallowed thickly. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder but didn’t look up to see whose it was. The girl had been ignored too long today. “We’ll get you a room, just like all the rest, okay?”

She pointed at the journal in his hands. “And write us down, too?” 

Thor nodded. “Mhmm. What’s your name?” 

It was Agatha, and she was the first of many. Brunnhilde kept them together in a larger group. They had one more room big enough to fit them all—a former conference room that Thor desperately hoped had never been touched by the Grandmaster. Loki had conjured cots and blankets for the entire population, and though he was nearly spent, he managed to gather the strength to provide for the children. 

Thor was looking down at his journal, flipping to the next empty page, when he heard a too-familiar voice. 

“Uncle Thor?” she asked, her voice wavering. 

Thor looked up so quickly his head spun. More tears blurred his vision. “Kari?” 

Kari, Volstagg’s daughter, nodded. She was older now than when Thor had last seen her. Her cheeks were more slender than chubby. Her dark hair was braided but still as curly as her father’s. Thor could almost see Volstagg in her eyes when she smiled. “I’ve missed you.” 

Thor let the journal fall off his lap as he pulled Kari in for a hug. It was all he could do not to break down. He’d known Volstagg was gone; Heimdall had told him as much, but this was a sick confirmation of that fact. 

“I’ve missed you, too,” he said, letting his eyes fall shut. “I’m so sorry, Kari. I’m sorry.” 

Kari didn’t say anything for a long time. Thor didn’t let her go until she pulled back. He gently brushed a tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb like he’d watched Volstagg do a thousand times when she was a toddler and more prone to tears. 

“Where’s your brother?” Thor asked, looking behind her for Halvor, Volstagg’s youngest. His heart lodged itself in his throat when he didn’t see him. 

“He’s on Vanaheim, with my mother,” Kari explained, and Thor felt a weight lift off his chest. Kari was not an orphan, after all. It was bittersweet comfort, but it  _ was _ comfort. “I...I’m sure someone will have to tell them what’s happened.”

Thor squeezed her shoulder. “Someone will. It’s going to be alright. Come on, let’s get you settled in.” 

Taking her hand, Thor pushed himself to his feet and went to join the other orphans in the conference room-turned bedroom. They were all lying in bed, fast asleep already. Loki was standing watch over them, his hand resting on his hip. He caught Thor’s eye as he passed, asking him silently if he was alright. Thor didn’t give him an answer until Kari was tucked in, and they’d left the room. 

“Where’s Halvor?” he asked, reluctantly letting his eyes pass from the door to his brother. 

Thor leaned against the wall. “He and his mother are on Vanaheim,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically hollow. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Loki or anything. He stared through the floor, silently begging the Norns to show him a meaning in all of this. The ache in his chest was turning into a chasm, spreading him open wider and wider until he’d eventually crumble in on himself. “Did Heimdall tell you?”

“No,” Loki whispered. Thor finally glanced over at his brother. There were tears in his eyes. His grip was too strong on the journals in his hands. “I pieced it together myself.” 

Thor swallowed and pushed himself upright. “We still haven’t recorded our family, yet,” he said, nodding at the books. 

He held out his hand, and Loki passed one over. Thor flipped to the back; Loki conjured a quill dripping with dark ink. Hands shaking, Thor penned in his name, followed by Loki’s, and with a full understanding of the weight behind the action, wrote  _ Odinson  _ as their surname. Loki didn’t show much emotion other than the slightest of gasps. 

“And that one, please?” Thor asked. They switched journals, and Thor bypassed the names. His heart clenched at how far he had to turn to find a blank page. He coughed once, and laughed a little as he wrote, “Odin Borson, the old bastard.” 

Loki snickered, and a genuine smile settled on his lips. “He’d be proud of you.” 

Thor didn’t know if that was true. He likely never would, not for sure, but he took the compliment with only a slight blush. “She’d be proud of you,” he said, knowing Frigga’s love meant more to Loki than Odin’s ever had. 

There was still blank space on the page. Thor pressed his lips together in a thin line. “Do you think they would mind if we included them in our family?” 

“No, I don’t think they would.” 

Tears blurred his vision almost to the point that he misspelled the names of his late friends, but he wiped his eyes before he did. Fandral and Hogun and Volstagg; his dearest friends for the longest time—reduced to memory and ink on a page. He swallowed and slammed the book shut.

'One last thing,” he managed before he rushed past Loki and back towards what had become the throne room. 

Loki’s footsteps were harried behind him, but they were behind him. Thor marched up to the window overlooking the stars and dropped to his knees. He stared out over the galaxy, tears streaming down his cheeks. He placed the book in front of him and opened it to the first page. Loki placed a hand on his shoulder, then knelt beside him. He waved his hand, and an arc of traditional mourning candles appeared in front of the book. The Asgardians may not have gotten a proper funeral, but Thor would be damned if he let their souls pass without a proper prayer. 

Side by side, as they had not been for far too long, Thor and Loki prayed for the safe passage of every single Asgardian soul they had lost to Hela. It was taxing work. Their voices were raw by the end of it, and their legs were bruised. Still, Thor was satisfied. It would be a long time before he was ever truly at peace with everything. Maybe he never would be. 

Loki took Thor’s hand, gave it a tight squeeze. “We’ve done what we can tonight. You need to sleep.”

Thor nodded. Gaze still trained on the stars, he struggled to his feet. His joints protested loudly. Loki moved his hand to his shoulder, and applied pressure, trying to make him move. Thor must have looked rough for Loki to treat him so. Before Thor relented, he wrapped Loki in a tight hug. 

“Thank you for staying,” he said. 

Loki sighed against Thor's chest. "I'm not going anywhere." 

And Thor was foolish enough to believe him. 


End file.
